Energy Newsbriefs Blog

This current awareness service is prepared by the WSU Energy Program Library with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy State Energy Program. This information is provided for energy professionals and interested members of the public to highlight recent energy-related news, articles, and reports that discuss energy efficiency, energy conservation, and renewable sources of energy in engineering and policy circles.

"The complexity of lighting design has made commissioning of lighting controls an essential part of projects. Commissioning for the most part is voluntary; however, if an owner is contemplating U.S. Green Building Council LEED certification or if ASHRAE 90.1-2010 compliance is required, commissioning is mandatory."

"Seventy-two artificial leaves that work as micro-turbines adorn the branches and spin silently on a vertical axis. Cables and generators have been integrated into the leaves and branches in a way that puts them out of sight and sound. The beautiful and functional device is the brainchild of French entrepreneur Jérôme Michaud-Larivière, who said the idea for a tree-inspired wind generator came to him one day while sitting in a square, watching the leaves on nearby trees tremble in a breeze. He wondered if energy could be generated in a similar way."

"An EPRI research team compared the energy consumption of the Microsoft Xbox One™, Sony PlayStation®4 (PS4™), and the Nintendo Wii U™ consoles while running the popular game Call of Duty®: Ghosts. In a head-to-head, hour-long test – the Wii U consumed 30 watt-hours (Wh) of electricity. Xbox One measured in at 105 Wh, and PS4 weighed in at 124 Wh."

"Chemists and engineers at Oregon State University (OSU) have discovered a fascinating new way to take some of the atmospheric carbon dioxide that's causing the greenhouse effect and use it to make an advanced, high-value material for use in energy storage products."

"While energy efficiency remains at the forefront of trends impacting the HVACR industry, it’s not only efficiency that the industry — and country — needs to be thinking about. We also need to address energy productivity: increasing GDP while reducing energy use."

"Form EIA-63C will gather information on pellet fuel and other densified biomass fuel production, sales, and inventory levels by operators of U.S. pellet fuel manufacturing facilities. The data collected will be used to estimate densified biomass fuel consumption in the United States, as well as production, sales, and inventory at state, regional, and national levels. Comments are due by 03/02/2015."

"CBSA is a comprehensive assessment of energy efficiency that provides critical information about energy use in the Northwest’s commercial buildings. The CBSA database includes more than 250 variables for each site including building type and functional use, building size, detailed information about building envelope, fenestration, lighting and HVAC equipment."

"We think the CHP favorability index concept that we’ve presented here can be a useful tool for CHP developers, policymakers, and advocates to use in their discussions. It highlights states where policy changes can make a difference, and where they probably will not. We would be remiss if we did not mention, as a caveat, that both indices exclude certain economic considerations beyond energy prices that can also impact market favorability for CHP. However, the approach represents a start at visualizing the interplay between policies and economic factors influencing CHP deployment and gives us a new way of discussing this subject."

"Businesses [large commercial, industrial, and institutional] that implement energy efficiency improvements often enjoy other benefits besides utility bill savings. However previous efforts to measure multiple benefits have been sporadic and far from rigorous. Still, evidence suggests that including non-energy impacts can reduce the payback time of some energy efficiency improvements by 50% or better. This report draws on expert interviews and a synthesis of existing literature to describe energy efficiency’s multiple benefits to business enterprises."

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The Energy Newsbriefs Blog is a continuation of the weekly Energy Newsbriefs. Please bookmark this site and return frequently. Although we will not be accepting comments from within the Blog, we would be happy to hear from you by email at library@energy.wsu.edu